The tone of this article is a bit tongue in cheek, but the point is quite serious. Innovators go through a number of phases as they accept the reality of innovation based on what executives and corporate culture allow. Growing as an innovator is something like experiencing the seven stages of grief, only it’s often done in reverse.

When we experience grief, such as when we lose a loved one, psychologists note that many people progress through a number of stages. Those are: disbelief, denial, bargaining, guilt, anger, depression, and finally acceptance or even hope. That is, at first we deny the issue, then we try to come to grips with it, then we express anger, then we finally come out of the darkness and end up with some hope.

One of the funnier examples of this was done by Tony Shaloub, who played the obsessive-compulsive TV character Adrian Monk. Here’s the clip. Monk goes through the stages in about 2 minutes, first denying that his psychiatrist is retiring, then bargaining for his return, then blowing his stack and sinking into depression.

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